Tesla remained still, watching Westinghouse wear a pattern in his Persian rug. “Copper prices will drop,” he said. “Probably soon.”
Westinghouse quit pacing. “Why do you say that?”
“The French cornered production channels, but they forgot about scrap. Every boy over six is scavenging copper. The consortium will fail and copper prices will collapse. Don’t count on that advantage lasting. You must defend alternating current against these safety attacks.”
“I wrote an article that was published in the New York papers doing exactly that,” Westinghouse replied.
“You defended Westinghouse Electric, you did not attack Edison.”
“I’ll attack in my next bid.”
“Sir, you must refute Edison’s claims or you’ll be branded a killer. Harold Brown and Dr. Peterson have the commission to design an electric chair under their thumb. You know what they will do.”
Westinghouse resumed pacing. He knew that Brown and Edison were up to no good when he had received a request from New York State to buy three Westinghouse alternating-current dynamos. He refused, but Brown—determined to execute someone with a Westinghouse dynamo—deceptively bought the generators through a third company that was in merger talks with Edison Electric.
Westinghouse knew he could handle the public indignity, but Edison’s minions were now working state legislatures all over the country. If they succeeded in restricting or limiting alternating current, Westinghouse Electric was doomed. He hated politicians, especially crooked or stupid ones, and he believed there were very few who didn’t fall into one of those two categories.
“I have my own plan, Nikola.”
“May I ask what it is?”
“I’m going to illuminate the World’s Fair.”
“Mr. Westinghouse—” Tesla was at a temporary loss for words. Finally, he sputtered, “Sir, that is four years away! It will be much too late.”
Westinghouse’s pace quickened. “Only three years until the contract is awarded. And it won’t be too late if I follow your advice. We’ll challenge Edison on safety. There’ll be many skirmishes during the next three years, but the deciding battle will be the World’s Fair. That is where we will establish alternating current as the way of the future.”
Westinghouse stopped directly in front of Tesla. “In the meantime, I’ve hired a lawyer with enough clout to bury the legislation in committees.”
New York City
July 1889
Thomas Edison scooted his chair closer to W. Bourke Cockran. He was infuriated, but he had to put on a good face.
“Would you please repeat the question?” Edison spoke loudly as he played with an unlit half-smoked cigar. “My hearing is not what it used to be.”
Cockran nearly yelled the question. “In your judgment, can alternating electric current be generated and applied in such a way to produce death in a human being in every case?”
“Yes!” he shouted back.
“Instantly?”
“Yes.”
Edison was pleased to see frustration on Cockran’s face even as he worked to keep his own expression blank. Cockran was a formidable foe. A former New York congressman and kingpin in the Tammany organization, he was now a powerful attorney with one of the most prestigious lists of clients in the city. Westinghouse had secretly hired Cockran to appeal William Kemmler’s death sentence by electricity. Unless someone intervened, Kemmler was going to be the first condemned man to die this way.
More than a dozen journalists were crammed into Cockran’s grand office in the Equitable Building, all there to report on an appeal that would determine if electrocution violated the constitutional restriction on “cruel and unusual punishment.” The hearing had been going on for nearly a week and Edison was losing. Cockran had called a string of witnesses who had survived accidental electric shocks or lightning strikes. Academics and government researchers had testified that Kemmler might be set on fire instead of killed instantly. And he’d even called Dash, a dog who had survived contact with a dangling Western Union line, as a witness.
Harold Brown convinced Edison that he needed to testify to turn the momentum around. But Cockran, Edison knew, would not go down easy; Westinghouse had done well to make him the public face defending alternating current.
“What is your relationship with Mr. Harold Brown?” Cockran asked Edison.
“He’s an independent engineer. I allow him to use my laboratories. I let many researchers use my labs. They’re the best in the world.”
“He is not in your employ?”
“No.”
Cockran looked amused. He leaned forward and struck a match to light Edison’s cigar. Edison took two healthy puffs and eyed Cockran quizzically.
“You’re excused,” Cockran said.
Edison stood to the screech of chairs all over the room, the reporters eager to follow him out. Since he hadn’t made a public appearance in the last eighteen months, he knew that he was the news, not this hearing.
Edison was pleased with himself. Cockran had tried numerous tactics to rattle him, but Edison either pretended not to hear or gave single-word answers. He didn’t dissimulate, volunteer extraneous information, or show any doubt in his answers.
Cockran controlled the questions, but Edison knew that was far less powerful than controlling the answers. If that’s all you’ve got, George, Edison thought to himself, then this is going to all be over faster than I thought.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
February 1890
A loud noise at the door drew Westinghouse’s attention away from his work. Ernest Heinrichs stood at his door.
“Have you read this?” Heinrichs asked, still trying to catch his breath. Westinghouse had recently hired Heinrichs, a journalist, to write articles that presented the viewpoint of the Westinghouse Electric Company. He motioned for him to take a seat.
“We need to say something to discredit these slanderers,” Heinrichs said, holding up a copy of a New York newspaper. “They want to popularize the term Westinghoused, like Dr. Guillotin’s name was attached to decapitation.”
Westinghouse held up his own copy of the paper, indicating he’d already read the article. “Don’t play the other fellow’s game. Edison hopes his power and influence will arrest the march of progress. It won’t. I hired you to get our position into the newspapers. Write positive stories about alternating current. Don’t return their slander.” Westinghouse reached behind him and picked up a sheaf of papers. “This is what you will write. These are notes on the Virginia Senate committee proceedings to limit the voltage of alternating current.”
Heinrichs sat up straighter. “We won Virginia?”
Westinghouse handed the papers to Heinrichs. “No, they lost Virginia. Edison himself testified—I think he was emboldened after the Kemmler hearing—and they still lost. Edison’s attorneys were so bent on attacking us that they never saw the coming assault by the arc lighting companies. Arc lighting may predate Edison’s lightbulb, but arc lights are still popular outdoors. They use alternating current, so they’re our natural allies. The people who testified against Edison were local businessmen, and good ol’ southern boys beat Yankee interlopers every time in Virginia. This was the first state legislative test. I want you to write it up so that it gets national attention.”
He picked a pamphlet off his desk and handed it to Heinrichs. “This is my reply to Mr. Edison, published last December. Use it for your articles. In 1888, sixty-four people were killed in streetcar accidents, fifty-five by wagons, twenty-three by gaslights, and five by alternating current. Memorize those numbers. Five is not exactly an orgy of killing. The article points out that at the August meeting of the Edison illuminating companies, a resolution was passed asking the parent company to satisfy criteria that can only be met by alternating current. His own engineers are rebuffing direct current. We now have five times the number of central stations as Edison.” He pointed at the pamphlet. “It’s all in there. These are the key poin
ts I want you to emphasize in the press at every opportunity.”
Heinrichs smiled. “You’re winning on every front.”
“No, not every front. We’ve lost our appeal for Kemmler so Edison still has his electric chair to use as a club. But I don’t want you to write about the new Kemmler appeal. I have others assigned to that battle.
“Mr. Heinrichs, you’re young and talented. You have a grand future. Always do your work with self-respect. Forget slanderous attacks. Write about how we are winning in the marketplace, in the state legislatures, and with electrical engineers.”
Westinghouse stood, put a hand on Heinrichs’s shoulder, and led him to the door.
“Do you understand your assignment?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Next time, knock before bursting into my office.”
New York City
Six months later: August 1890
“I tell you, this is a grand thing, and is destined to become the instrument of legal death throughout the world.”
Thomas Edison couldn’t tell if Dr. Southwick believed what he had just said or was simply a fool.
“Doctor, do you wish to know what I think of this first electrocution?”
“I do!” he said eagerly.
The man was smiling. He was an idiot. Edison swiveled his chair to look at Harold Brown, who at least had the wit to look chagrined.
“I invested years in associating alternating current with death,” Edison said. “We’ve successfully killed hundreds of animals with it, yet you can’t kill even one deranged axe murderer. Harold, I—”
“Mr. Edison, he’s dead,” Southwick interrupted.
“Dead?” Edison yelled. “Are you sure? You hit him with seventeen seconds of current and he came back to life.” Edison picked up the newspaper account and followed the text with his finger as he read aloud. “One of the physicians yelled in horror. ‘Great God! He is alive.’ Another screamed, ‘See, he breathes.’ A witness shouted, ‘For God’s sake, kill him.’ ”
Edison threw the paper at Brown, who blocked it with a forearm. Edison continued: “The article goes on to say the warden had to reattach the scalp electrode to do the job again. Kemmler caught on fire and smoked. Most of the newspapers say he was roasted. The stench from burnt flesh and feces was unbearable. Several people threw up, adding to the stink. A reporter fainted, the county sheriff started bawling, and everybody fought to get out of that damned chamber.”
Edison reached behind him and threw a stack of newspapers at Brown. “They all say the same thing!” Edison swiveled toward the doctor. “And you call this a grand thing? You two have ruined me!”
Both men stood up sheepishly.
“Harold, I never want to see your name in print. If I ever see or hear of you again, I’ll have you arrested, even if I have to trump up charges. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Now get out.”
Edison ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. He told himself his reputation could be salvaged, that he never gave up and had never been defeated. Westinghouse would still rue the day he challenged the Wizard of Menlo Park.
He stood. There were reporters downstairs. He had to face them. He composed himself as he descended the stairs and mustered every ounce of optimism he could.
The first reporter’s question was obvious. “What do you think about the electrocution?”
“I have merely glanced over an account of Kemmler’s death and it was not pleasant reading.”
“Why didn’t it go as you predicted?”
“I understand the doctors bungled it. Very unfortunate.”
“George Westinghouse said they could have done it better with an axe. Any comment?”
“No.” Edison turned and climbed back up the stairs to his office.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
June 1891
“Edison is in Chicago. He wants to electrify the World’s Fair.” Tesla sounded peeved.
Westinghouse was calm. “It’s a good sign. His backers are concerned.”
J. P. Morgan, William H. Vanderbilt, and William Waldorf Astor had pledged $15 million to finance the fair if Congress awarded it to New York, but Chicago had won out anyway. New Yorkers had been stunned when they’d learned about the loss. They’d assumed everything west of the Hudson River was wasteland. Westinghouse, however, knew there were more than two hundred hungry millionaires in Chicago, all of them craving recognition, status, and respect. They had met the Wall Street bid and raised it. Edison and his financiers assumed that an electric contract would automatically come with the fair. Now that the contract was no longer assured, they had dispatched the Wizard to personally sell his elixir to the fair’s governing committee.
Tesla seldom paced, but he couldn’t help himself. “Edison can be persuasive.”
Westinghouse smiled. “Sit down or stand still, Nikola. Pacing doesn’t suit you.”
Tesla stood still with his hands clasped behind his back. “You should be worried.”
Westinghouse laughed. “You don’t see me fret, so you take on the mantle of worrier? Relax. Edison’s in trouble. The Kemmler execution put a big dent in his armor. He’s no longer infallible.”
Westinghouse was gaining confidence by the day. The month after Kemmler’s botched electrocution, Westinghouse sales had jumped to their highest levels in company history. In less than five years, revenue had grown from $150,000 to nearly $5 million. In the meantime, Edison had allowed his companies to be reorganized as Edison General Electric. Westinghouse heard that the president of the new company had once boasted that the new capital meant good-bye to Westinghouse.
Tesla took a deep breath. “You have a plan, don’t you, George?”
Westinghouse shrugged. “Not so much a plan as a partner. We’ll feign disinterest in the bidding, but in the end, we’ll be in the game.”
Thomas Edison had received a large amount of cash as part of the reorganization, but he ended up retaining only a 10 percent interest in the new company. That, Westinghouse believed, was a big mistake. One that he himself would never make. He wouldn’t sell his patents and he would never sell his companies. Ownership was control, and control was everything.
He suspected that Edison was about to learn a hard lesson about the ruthlessness of Wall Street moneymen.
West Orange, New Jersey
Late winter 1892
Thomas Edison was surprised to hear that Alfred Tate was downstairs. Tate, who had been serving as Edison’s personal secretary for nearly ten years, was supposed to be in New York City at Edison headquarters, not here at Edison’s West Orange estate.
“Send him up,” Edison said.
When Tate hurried into his private office, Edison cut right to the chase. “Why are you here, Alfred?”
“There’s been a merger.”
“Who?” Edison was suddenly gripped by a fear that Westinghouse had found a powerful ally.
“Edison General Electric and Thomson-Houston. It’s the second-largest industrial merger in history.”
Edison leapt to his feet. “My company? How could that happen without me knowing?”
“J. P. Morgan. He struck the deal.” Tate paused and looked toward the ground. “Sir, I don’t know how to tell you this, but Edison General Electric is the junior partner. Charles Coffin, the Thomson-Houston president, will be the president of the combined company.”
“No! This cannot be.” Edison felt faint. He sat back down and pounded his fist into a pile of papers on top of his cluttered desk. Damn Morgan. Edison’s first electrification was Morgan’s home and now the banker had repaid him by shoving him aside without even the courtesy of a telegram.
How could this happen? Edison thought—but the truth was that he knew how it happened. Even worse, he knew why: He had been maneuvered to relinquish control because of the threat posed by alternating current. The Kemmler electrocution had merely been a public exhibition of his failure to kill this competing technology.
Edison salesmen were now clamoring for alternating current and that is what Thomson-Houston brought to the table. Dammit! His entire strategy to discredit alternating current had backfired. Instead of proving how unsafe it was, it proved the opposite: It was hard to kill a man with alternating current even when it was hooked directly up to his skull.
After a few moments of silence Edison had regained his composure. “What is the name of our new enterprise?” he asked Tate.
Tate hesitated. “General Electric.”
“At least they took my name.”
“No, sir.”
“I don’t understand—you said that the new company was called ‘Edison General Electric.’ ”
“No, sir. There is no ‘Edison’ anymore.”
Chicago
May 1893
Westinghouse was nervous. This was an unnatural emotion for him, but in a couple of minutes he would either rule the electrification world or be the biggest dunce in America. It all depended on the flip of a switch.
It had been a circuitous route to this moment. Westinghouse had publicly stated that his company would not bid on the electrification of the World’s Fair. With every other substantial electric company consolidated into General Electric, there was hardly any competition left.
When the bid box was opened, GE’s bid surprised no one: $1,720,000. But a second bid was found: $625,600 from a small Chicago firm. It was far less than GE’s, but the small company was taken seriously when Westinghouse Electric said it would back the proposal.
Westinghouse had, of course, not relied solely on the bid of a silent partner. In advance of the bidding he had dispatched Heinrichs to Chicago to whip up newspaper animosity toward the haughty New Yorkers. Heinrichs never had an easier assignment. The Chicago reporters hated the New York “electrical trust” and embraced Westinghouse as their champion from Pittsburgh, another industrial town familiar with being disparaged by the high-and-mighty Manhattanites.
Westinghouse, knowing the importance of the World’s Fair as a showcase for technology, had surreptitiously worked three years to win the bid. Now the war between him and Edison—between alternating and direct current—all came down to the flip of a switch.